Whoever decided Dice should be in at the end of the game, should be fired.

A lack of NazMo allowed Yao Ming to run wild on the Pistons.

Without NazMo, we're going nowhere fast.

That said, I enjoyed this game. The ghost of Jeff Van Gundy was everywhere.

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It was Flip's decision to leave in Dice, so lets get his walking papers ready. I know the visitors should go for win on the road, but with 11 seconds left, I would have posted up Sheed for a possible and 1 situation, then go for that 3.....then with .8 seconds left all of out three point shooters sgould have been out there. Billups, Tay , Hayes, Rip and either Hunter or even Terry Porter, but hopalong Dice???

Yeah, Jr was pretty bad. But Hunter has been even worse, and obviously neither of those guys are the answer. We sure need Stuckey to produce once he gets out there.

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You have to wonder if Stuckey had not been injured, we would possibly could be 19-3 right now instead of 15-7? Or are we putting to much faith in the savior?? You have to hope that he would be more consistent than Jr or Hunter

Tay was beat by TMAC totally. Tay is not even trying to shoot now from the outside. A sign of fatigue?

Billups was pretty awesome, hitting a ton of shots, but the shot that could have won the game, an open 3 with a few seconds to go, missed.
Rip was hitting from everywhere too.

Sheed got player of the game with 21 points and 8 rebounds. His 21 came mostly in the 4th quarter. He did hit some triples, one of which helped get us back in the game after being down 10 with just a short time to go in the game, but he did also do a lot of work around the basket. (Rip hit the other triple there.)

Three starters shooting well, and a fourth, Dyess, doing ok too. Can't complain about just one starter not shooting well.

JMAX had another pretty darn good game off the bench. He remains the largest part of our offensive rebounding game. He made a very impressive move on Ming, putting down the dribble, faking right and springing up left to make a jumper. And he makes his free throws when he is fouled.

No Amir. Its pretty clear Flip has Amir buried so far down the depth chart he will never see the light of day in non-garbage time. No more excuses. The ankle has long since healed. Just a matter of Joe Dumars not forcing his coach to play someone he wants to see play. But the good news is Afflalo did get to play in the 2nd half of this one, in a close game. Thats a nice change. Indeed, the game was tied until Murray thru the ball away, and then allowed Alston to hit a triple on him. Flip's response - pull Murray, and Afflalo. (and a third starter returned too - Dyess for Maxiell)This all triggered a 10-0 run for Houston. I will reiterate, the 10 point lead was mostly gotten with our starters on the floor.

Murray got the nod to play tonight supposedly because Hunter did not have a good game last night? Sorry, uh, I'll take Hunter. Now, Flip has not played much of late, so you can give him a pass for tonight if you wish.

Hayes has disappeared from the scoring column as of late. But it does not matter. He will get to play regardless of production. He is a vet. As long as it keeps Amir down, its fine with Flip Saunders no matter how bad Hayes plays.

This game had a very exciting end to it. Pretty good resiliency shown by our starters considering all the minutes they logged last night, and considering Sheed has had the flu bug to contend with.
Dyess took a knee apparently (to his thigh I think) but came back to play the last moment of the game. (But what was Dyess doing at the 3 line? No range there.)

Maybe we took too many threes. For sure the starters at one point in the 3rd were taking too many outside shots, as they were looking pretty worn out there. With Maxiell in though, they rallied big time to end the 3rd quarter, going on a 12 - 2 run. That and the near comeback in the last minute or so again showed a lot of moxy by our team.

Houston really should have blown us out in this game, but they could not make any free throws. They were on their merry way to set a new record for free throw futility until late in the 4th quarter. I think they started one for 16 at the line, with no starter making a free throw until late 4th quarter. How bad can you get?

TMAC killed Tay all game long, while Ming heated up down the stretch. This is a two man team for the most part.

Our starting lineup, in my opinion, should change, with Jason Maxiell starting. Our pattern of getting killed on the boards to start every game of late must stop. Glad to hear any other suggestions on this. I think Dyess is way overplayed. Another thing that would work, well two other things - would be to start either Samb or Amir instead of Dyess. Anyway it goes, Dyess has to go back to his bench role, with a lot less minutes. GO PISTONS!!!!!

Ok lemme get this straight, a guy who only takes about 8 shots / game and hits about 60% of them is our problem. Sure OK.

I'll keep decent perspective and call this "ONE OF THOSE GAMES". I'll give Flip credit, he actually subbed in the 2nd half and got the starters some rest. Can't blame the coach for Tayshaun playing like a scared little uNOwhat. And dont give me that fatigue BS, if he'a already effin tired then call Phx tomarrow and see what it takes to get Shawn Marion on Roundball-1. Bad game tonight, can't blame coaching.....wait yes I can......:
Somebody answer this for me PLEASE. They say Nazr is here to play spot mins against teams with BIG INTERIOR CENTERS, so when teams go small against us i.e. Chi W/Noc & Memph w/Warrick....Nazr is on the floor.....but against the BIGGEST INTERIOR PLAYER IN THE LEAGUE- Yao, he gets a DNP-CD?????? WTF...somebody explain this to me PLEASE!!!!

We didn't have good preparation for this team (when is our coaching preparation good?). Our shooting trouble was Yao in the lane clogging it up. You either commit to drive and get him in foul trouble or you settle for an outside game. We drove in and then fumbled around for a shot.

In the second half, Yao got tired and the Houston defense had some holes but we really didn't make them pay much. We still have trouble scoring against good defenses and that despite the great play of Maxiel. We seem to be thin at center. If we don't play Nazi against Yao why is he on the team?

I would have let Nazr take a crack at Yao, especially after Sheed got in foul trouble. Not sure if he would have had any success or not. Dyess was pretty effective at countering Yao by shooting J's on the other end. A mismatch that went both ways.

Yao had a good game, but keep in mind that he played 44 minutes and took 21 shots! Sheed had just as many points in much less time.

Just as Hou was playing good D on us, we were on them as well. Both teams seemed to have trouble getting easy buckets and started chucking 3's (15 3PA's for each team). The difference was that they had a "superstar" who could rise above the defense and get a semi-good shot off any time he wanted. It must have been a little demoralizing for Tay and Co.

Tayshaun's worst game I can remember in a long time (he was terrible in every aspect of the game), combined with poor shot selection (the usual) lost this one. Should have been a blowout.

By the way, it seems like Jarvis is coming back to earth a bit. He's not hitting those bad shots like he used to. Now he's hurting us on both ends. Hopefully it's just a slump, but he's 3-for-19 (15%) in the last 4 games, and this is more like the advertised version of Jarvis.

Now that I got that off my chest, I respectfully disagree that JMax should be starting Lee. I think that he is more effective, as from what I've seen these past few games, coming off the bench. But he should be taking up more minutes from Dice and Sheed. Somewhere around 30 + minutes as what he's getting now.

I'm happy with Afflalo getting minutes. Minutes that count to boot. I'm not quite sure if Flip will yield to Stuckey when he returns though. He's more inclined to play Hunter and FlipM. With our coach, he'd probably cut into Afflalo's minutes.

Flip was wrong in this game. Nazr should have played some Yao. Dice should have rested kind of like that game when Sheed got banged up and decided to sit out the rest of the game, if I remember correctly, and JMax stepped up. He should give some leeway for other guys to do something for the team. I know we've been harping on Nazr almost all season but the least he would have done would be to expend his 6 fouls and send Yao to the line where they were atrocious. Nazr has shown more this season to merit some time, IMO than last season.

FlipS is inconsistent and doesn't quite have a handle on his matchups and in game adjustments, and he doesn't have that in-game feel that other coaches have.

Billups will be Billups.

Rip is really forcing the isolations and one-on-one situations when he should be more of that road-runner-coming-off-screen players, running his defender ragged. He isn't using his speed and stamina as well as before IMO. Loved seeing him come off screens and shooting that jumpshot.

Sheed will be Sheed.

Keep your head up Tay. Keep shooting. Keep in the game.

FlipM uggh.

Amir??? He needs the game time. And its not like he's really stinking the place up when he plays. He does well, gives effort. Defense is there. Offense will come with more playing time. PLAY HIM FLIP!!!!

I know we've been harping on Nazr almost all season but the least he would have done would be to expend his 6 fouls and send Yao to the line where they were atrocious.

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Careful what you wish for; Yao shoots mid to high 80s from the line. Yes, he missed his first two last night, but so did CB, but no one would conclude from other Pistons' struggles that hack-a-Chauncey might be an advisable strategy.

No Amir. Its pretty clear Flip has Amir buried so far down the depth chart he will never see the light of day in non-garbage time. No more excuses. The ankle has long since healed.

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You finally realized that. Better late than never.

Like I have posted for the last month, we can forget AJ getting serious minutes this year unless one of our bigs goes out and can't play and even then it might depend on the schedule who we are playing and how long they are out.

So it is indeed an emotional conflict for me. As much as I would love to see AJ getting some meaningful minutes I would not want it at the expense of one of our bigs getting hurt, even Nazmo.